The arts mix en route to No66

After enjoying country life, the actor Frank Laverty and his composer wife craved the city again, and found a home ideal for showbiz parties, writes Kate Butler

Back in the late 1990s, the idea of country life appealed to the television actor Frank Laverty. Having played a farm manager called Ronan in the quintessential rural drama Glenroe, Laverty thought he could also make it work in real life. Looking for a house to buy with his wife, Laura Forrest-Hay, a composer, Laverty received further encouragement for the idea while filming.

“We had looked at two-up, two-down houses in Cabra for IR£90,000,” says Laverty. “But then Mary McEvoy (who plays Biddy Byrne) came on set one day and gave me a bunch of brochures from an agent in the area where she lived. There was a gorgeous old farmhouse for the same price as those houses in Dublin, and we thought, ‘Why not?’” The Lavertys went for the country option, but after only four years they realised that they were happier in the city. Yet their experience of